


We The People

by Vallombrosa



Category: Coriolanus - Shakespeare, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, Angst, Dolores Umbridge is Her Own Warning, Harry Potter is a Little Shit, Lucius Malfoy's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mind Games, Severus Snape Is Probably Going To Die, Slow Burn, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:46:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24453121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vallombrosa/pseuds/Vallombrosa
Summary: Snape is made Head of Magical Law Enforcement, not Headmaster, but everyone is still out for his blood.The people of Magical Britain are calling for his resignation. Umbridge and Yaxley have ganged up to destroy his political career. Voldemort's not happy with the lack of progress on the Potter front. Any day now, Harry Potter is going to kill him.This is a political tragedy based on Shakespeare's'Coriolanus'but set in the magical world. Updates twice a week.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape (Implied)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 64
Collections: Snarry-A-Thon





	1. Enemy to the People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucius Malfoy is pretty confident that he's stuck behind the worst Muggles in the world, when the street explodes and the revolution begins.

" _Hear me speak_ _!_ You are all resolved rather to die than famish? You know Caius Martius is chief enemy to the people. **_Let us kill him_**."

\- First Citizen, William Shakespeare, _Coriolanus_

* * *

It’s 1997. Dumbledore is dead, and a young Muggle couple is snogging violently against a red telephone box.

This is what Lucius Malfoy sees as he queues for the front entrance to the Ministry of Magic. It makes him want to vomit. And yet, it remains marginally less repulsive than the Back Entrance. Stepping into toilet bowls is beneath him, because he isn't going to think about - no.

So today, he waits like a good boy. Today is Wednesday, and the pater familias of the Noble and Moste Ancient House of Malfoy is playing voyeur to a pair of mudbloods in heat. It is painfully obvious that the magical gods are displeased with him.

Lucius clears his throat as the boy presses his face into her neck. There is, after all, a rather large queue forming - in fact - a queue that is rather too large -

(- and later, in the shadow of his manor, by the light of his fire, Lucius will forgive himself for failing to realise that this should have been his first warning.)

_Reducto_ , says a tiny wandless whisper.

A heartwrenching pulse of raw power tears through the very fabric of the air. The telephone box is vicious dust and the street is on fire. Behind Lucius, every wand is drawn as Protegos are lazily thrown around. The armed queue, now in barricade formation, is advancing on the street.

The kissing couple is gone, but Lucius knows in his sinking gut that the Reducto was cast in front of him.

 _Sonorus_ , he snaps, but the spell dies in his throat. Someone has already cast the Sonorus Charm in his vicinity, cancelling out his own.

The boy charges to the front and punches the air.

“ _Dumbledore’s Army!_ ”

“DUMBLEDORE,” begins the chant. “ _DUMBLEDORE! DUMBLEDORE!_ ”

“Hear me speak,” shouts the boy. “Albus Dumbledore was _murdered_! Betrayed and _murdered_ in cold blood!”

 _“MURDER,_ ” they howl. “MURDER! _MURDER!”_

 _This is incredible,_ he thinks _. Did you guys rehearse this?_

“His _murderer_ walks free,” the boy yells, as a floating banner unfurls above his head. “His _murderer_ is Head Auror and leads your Auror Force! _Protector_ of the People!”

Lucius sends a quick congratulatory Patronus to the man of the hour.

“Severus Snape is the chief enemy to the people! I charge him _guilty_. I say, let him _die_ for his crime! _LET US KILL HIM!_ ”

 _“_ MURDERER! _MURDERER! MURDERER! MURD-_ _”_

“Enough,” says Lucius, glaring at the banner of Severus’ head with almost as much contempt as the boy. Where was the bastard anyway? Making the noble scion of Malfoy _stall_ for his arrival, of all things.

“They hear you,” soothes Lucius, not even thinking about his words but enjoying the way they sounded anyway. “They hear your suffering-"

_"-MURDERER-"_

"-and you slander the helms of our Ministry, who _care_ for you like mothers-"

"-MURDERER! _MURDERER!-"_

"-and fathers, and yet, you curse them, as our enemies-”

_The wards are down_ , coos a round silvery duck. _This is not a drill._ _The wards are down! PLEASE USE THE BACK ENTRAN-_

I can _tell_ the wards are down, Dawlish, I just watched twenty teenagers Apparate into the Ministry. _Fuck you_.

 _Send message_ , Lucius says to his Patronus, as he follows them with a faint pop.

* * *

The first thing that strikes Lucius is the ugly face of Severus Snape sneering at him from every banner, floating and _aflame._

The second thought that hits him is _Holy Fucking Hell_ _the Ministry is on fire_.

Lucius quickly messages his immediate suspect through his left arm.

_Having fun without me?_

_Baby,_ replies his Mark in the voice of Bellatrix Lestrange. _We’re on holiday?_

Lucius lets out a breath he has been holding for the godfather of his son. The part of Lucius who calls itself _Friend_ is thrilled with relief that the Dark Lord hasn’t simply woken up on Wednesday morning, and decided that Severus had used up his right to exist.

A small number of the protesters have been captured. Lucius knows that the Aurors are winning. Some of the younger members are shifting nervously, wondering whether they should charge at monolithic power - whether, perhaps, Telephone Boy might even expect it of them.

Yaxley is cruciating Telephone Girl, who can’t be much older than Draco. Of course she screams, because they always do. It reminds Lucius that the Cruciated scream is rightfully the worst sound in the world, heard under Dementor cloaks where only darkness sings. The part of Lucius who calls itself _Father_ cannot bear to hear it dragged from the lips of this child.

All of a sudden, it ends just as quickly as it began.

 _Someone is coming,_ Lucius realises, and their very footfall is lowering every wand in the room.

Merlin knows where the Minister is. In the meantime, _Someone_ is destroying any doubt that he has always been the most dangerous person in the room -

\- and then, Severus Snape is here.

He sweeps across the silent Atrium in less than ten slow strides, unarmed and undaunted. There is murder in the icy caverns where his eyes should be.

“What’s the matter?”

Lucius can barely make out his voice as Severus has stopped in front of Telephone Boy, addressing him alone.

“You _dare_ show your faces,” continues the same soft voice, dripping with power, threaded with danger. “Rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, making yourselves scabs?”

Snape towers over the boy, whom Lucius expects will start to quake and blubber any moment now. It seems, however, that Telephone Boy has completely lost his mind.

“My opinion,” mocks the boy, who grins because he has completely lost his mind. “What for? We have your good word.”

“A man who gives you good words will flatter,” Severus enunciates softly, deadly. “Beneath abhorring. He who deserves greatness would deserve your hate.”

Not a breath can be heard in the hushed Atrium for the first time in living memory. Even the Golden Fountain has cut off its water. The Ministry is taking in his every word.

“What’s the matter,” he croons, as if daring the boy to respond, and it strikes Lucius as a horribly familiar resemblance of their beloved master.

_Sectumsempra_ , came the same wandless whisper.

Lucius has never heard of the spell, so he isn’t surprised when nothing seems to happen.

And yet, if you know Severus the way Lucius knows Severus, you will catch how his black eyes widen ever so slightly, because _Severus never changes_ , and Lucius remembers a First Year and a Transfiguration corridor, and for two decades, a husk of a Cruciated man, groveling at their master's feet. So right now, Lucius understands immediately the familiar expression that flits across Severus' face - for a tenth of a second - is terror.

Severus backhands him across the face with a sickening echo.

The boy crumbles to the ground as blood sprays everywhere _,_ seemingly from nowhere, until Lucius sees that a deep diagonal gash now slices the boy’s face in half. Soaked in his own blood, and yet, he's shaking with laughter like he just played the greatest joke in the world on the most dangerous man he knows.

Twenty faint pops later, they're gone.

A Floo shoots up in green flame and spits out another thin boy shouting.

"Where is Severus Snape?"

 _What the fuck are you doing here,_ thinks Malfoy Senior, staring into a perfect reflection of his own pale grey eyes.

 _What the fuck_ , thinks Draco Malfoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Malfoy can cast a Patronus? Yes and it's a ferret because Patronuses are about love and there is one person he loves in this entire world.


	2. A Lion That I Am Proud To Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Go home," says the voice of Severus Snape.

"He is a lion that I am proud to hunt."

\- Caius Martius Coriolanus, William Shakespeare, ' _Coriolanus_ '

* * *

Lucius is going to have a word with his son. After he Disapparates the pair of them to Wiltshire, and leaves this Merlin forsaken room, Lucius is going to have a word.

"What is it, Draco?"

"Father," he nods. "Where's Severus?"

"Here."

"Harry Potter has taken up arms," _against our Lord_ , he doesn't say.

"When was this?"

"About five minutes ago."

"That's not possible," says Snape.

 _Because I just slapped him to the floor of the Ministry,_ he doesn't say.

 _Because,_ he doesn’t say, _if I scrape the crusting blood from my knuckles and drop them into a Blood-Checking base right now, my copper cauldron will shoot up in bright green flame._

Green as his mother's eyes, and the curse that lit up the Astronomy tower.

_I would stake my life on it. I am surer that Potter's blood drips from my right hand than I have ever been sure of anything in my miserable life._

_I don't even need to leave this room_. There's Polyjuice in his Auror-issue belt. One red drop, and a swig later, you'd be staring at messy black hair and a lightning scar.

And if Severus does say this, then his godson's mouth will form a perfect O as his father slams his left forearm and summons their noseless friend before Auror Yaxley does. So he does not say anything, and Draco continues.

"Your presence is requested at Hogsmeade," says Draco, struggling to omit _Professor._ "Sir. Immediately."

"Thank you, Draco," Snape turns to his left. "We're leaving."

Lucius realises with a start that he's being addressed.

"Sir?" and honest to Merlin, it feels awful in his mouth.

When Severus turns to look at him, his gaze is unfathomably heavy. He is lost in solipsism, and Lucius has the sudden awful fear that Snape is about to force him to listen to a most incriminating secret.

"I envy him," says Snape.

Lucius suddenly remembers the hateful existence of Legilimency for a cursed second, and begins persuading himself that Snape is talking about the Dark Lord, for when the aforementioned looks into their eyes in the next hour. _Thanks a fucking lot, Severus._

"Were I anything but what I am," he continues softly. "I would wish me only he."

 _The Dark Lord,_ Severus?

_Why are you doing this, Severus?_

"Harry Potter, sir?"

Draco sounds every bit of the ex-Malfoy elf.

"He is a lion," says Snape. "That I am proud to hunt."

Snape then shakes off his reverie, to Lucius' immense relief.

"Lucius will see me strike at his face once more," he says hatefully. "Will you come?"

_Once more? Once-!_

"Lead on," and he is proud there is no tremor.

They Disapparate with one resounding crack.

***

The village of Hogsmeade does not feel two Dark Wizards land in her arms.

"Why did you tell me?"

"We are about to fight an imposter," Snape says through his teeth. "I thought you should know."

Lucius raises a perfect eyebrow to remind Severus of the recent transaction of power between them. One eyebrow says, _I just made you my bitch. One wrong word, and you're out, Severus._

"Lucius, please. He cannot know I have failed."

"Draco," he begins instead. "Consider it repaid."

 _You will save Draco again_ , he hears. The implication is not lost on Snape. They never escape the Astronomy Tower.

***

_"Levicorpus!"_

And if he hasn't heard that since the World Cup. Sometimes, when he's levitating Muggles in their pyjamas, Lucius almost forgets that Severus was the one who gave them the spell, barely out of his Sixth Year. How Riddle almost laughed at the brilliance of it, immediately foreseeing how the playground curse could be used for torture.

Lucius is about to stun the Potter decoy when the boy shouts at his comrade with surprise.

"Severus?!"

_"Obliviate."_

What a funny spell! Lucius wonders for a moment what possessed Severus to perform a Memory Charm on the other man, of all things, when-

_Where am I? Why am I here?_

***

The village of Hogsmeade does not feel two Dark Wizards land in her arms.

"Why did you tell me?"

Severus gives him a weird look.

"Tell you what?"

"That you envy him."

Severus exhales as if relieved.

"Power hates a vacuum, Lucius," he says. "You know this better than anyone."

"And Potter?"

"In the unlikely event that Potter happens to win this war," he says carefully. "Who do you imagine will be our next Dark Lord?"

"Careful now," but Lucius is smiling.

"I always am."

***

"Harry!"

"That's not Harry," says Harry Potter.

_"Harry!?"_

"That's my name."

"Your _face!_ Bloody hell! Who's that, then?"

"What did he say?" says Harry Potter, addressing his doppelganger on the hearth.

"I don't remember," says Remus Lupin. “What happened to your face?”

Harry pales.

"EVERYONE OUT! _NOW!"_

He casts several layers of wards on the room, and a _Muffliato_ for old time's sake and the irony of it all.

" _Priori Incantatem._ "

Lupin's body glows a series of different colours.

"Okay, _Ennervate, Stupefy, Confundus, Obliviate_ , there you go - is that a _Levicorpus?_ Why would Snape cast Levicorpus?"

"This was _Snape?_ How'd you know?"

 _"Aguamenti, Lubric-_ right! I think that's enough.”

"Can you _Finite_ the Confundus for me? I'm getting a headache."

"I'm thinking I could undo the Charm and figure out what he said."

"Go for it."

_"Legilimens!"_

***

_Go home._

The Order of the Phoenix is gathered in the dining room of 12 Grimmauld Place.

A pensieve sits innocuously on the dining table. Its pearly contents are swirling lazily.

" _Go home_ ," says the voice of Severus Snape.

"That's it?"

Hermione sounds incredulous, and her sentiments are reflected in the Weasley faces around her.

"This is a trap," says Arthur. Lupin nods.

"No," says the Boy Who Lived.

"This is a test."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Lubricus_ is commonly used in fandom as the Lubrication Charm.


	3. He's Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite his recent display of ingenuity, it must be said that Harry James Potter is no Ravenclaw.

“If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet, ’tis sworn between us we shall ever strike till one can do no more … He's _mine_ , or I am his.”

— Aufidius, William Shakespeare, _Coriolanus_

* * *

Severus Snape sits at the right hand of the Dark Lord. Today, however, he drops to his knees on cold Malfoy marble.

"Master."

"Hi," says Voldemort. " _Crucio_."

 _Muffliato_ , thinks Snape, before he screams and screams and makes no sound.

"You will bring him in. I gave you the Ministry, Severus."

Severus Snape is not moving as Voldemort leans over a graceless heap of robes.

"Use it well."

***

He sits at the right hand of the Minister for Magic, clenching his tremor in fists.

"The news is that the rebel forces are in arms."

Scrimgeour casts a silvery hologram to float above the conference table.

"They have a new leader," he says grimly. "He wears a false face. I suspect Polyjuice, but his face does not match our records."

"Impersonating a Muggle, then."

"There is more."

All heads turn to the Head of Magical Law Enforcement.

"I suspect Imperius," says Snape, praying they eat up his lie. "The boy cast a Dark curse on himself. His magical core should have prevented him from doing so."

"We will not shoot. Are the results back yet?"

Severus remembers warm blood on his hand, and watches the hologram fall to his knees, crumble to the ground. He realises with sick envy. _We are not the same. Potter does not grovel._

"May I be the one to bring him in?"

"Who is it, Snape?"

"Harry," he says, and wonders whether one day he might pause there. "Potter."

***

"It will bruise," says Hermione as she prods his cheek with Dittany.

"Not surprised, at the rate you're poking it."

Harry earns a Look that doesn't Bode Well.

"Kidding," he adds hastily.

"Sick bastard," says Ron darkly. "What'd he hit you for? Bet he's been itching to do that for a while."

Harry doesn’t tell them who cast Sectumsempra, partly as he himself doesn't know why he did. It was a Gryffindor risk he can't take again. His only thought was that he wanted Snape to know it was him.

"Give me the words again."

" _Vulnera Sanentur._ You need to cast it three times."

But Hermione has only cast it twice before his face tingles. Ron whoops loudly at the freshly healed skin on his face.

"Old man's losing his touch!"

Harry doesn't say anything. He recalls the sixth-floor bathroom and how Malfoy's blood left his chest in great spurts - nothing like the weak dribble that had oozed along his chin in the Ministry.

 _I almost died today_ , he realises. _Why didn't I?_

He recalls Remus Lupin's weary face in an empty moonlit classroom, when he spoke the chilling words all those years ago - _the Map never lies_ \- like he had momentarily become a spokesperson for the Laws of Nature.

Suddenly, Harry feels the same deadened certainty in his gut that Lupin must have felt.

Just as the Map never lied, _the Prince's spells never fail._ Harry remembers the first time he cast _Muffliato_ and _Levicorpus_ and how they had worked to their full capacity, without the caster even needing to know what the spell did. When Ron was hanging by his ankle in the Gryffindor dorm, Harry hadn't even said _Levicorpus_ out loud.

There was no weakened form of a Prince spell. It didn't exist. And Snape, who was powerful, deadly, intelligent, what was he doing, playing around with spells that only needed incantation?

Was Snape already looking ahead to a time when he would be powerless and incapacitated? Too weak for _foolish wand-waving_ , Crucio'd out of his mind, magically drained, and needed spells in his arsenal that required the bare minimum to activate?

 _He was only in Sixth-Year_ , thought Harry with disgust and rage.

"Someone got to me first," he says.

Someone had cast the first Vulnera on Harry's face almost instantaneously. They're the reason he stands in Sirius' en-suite and not cold in the Ministry morgue. _As if on instinct, as if they'd been in his exact situation before ..._

"Who else would know the counter-curse?”

But despite his recent display of ingenuity, it must be said that Harry James Potter is no Ravenclaw.

"Draco Malfoy."

***

Kingsley Shacklebolt sits at the left hand of the Minister for Magic. Today, he sits at the right hand of Harry Potter.

"The Ministry has entered into preparations for an attack on the rebels," he says to the Order of the Phoenix. "Harry, they scraped your blood from Snape's hand. They know it was you."

"Who leads the attack?"

Harry can guess already.

"Who else," says Kingsley. "He practically volunteered."

"What are his orders?"

"The Auror Force is not to shoot. They are to bring you in. The Minister suspects Imperius."

"That's quite odd," says Harry. "And he's sure it was me? Why Imperius?"

“It keeps you alive for Voldemort to kill you,” adds Moody, from Harry’s other side. “How’d he convince the Minister?”

“Snape suggested it was impossible to curse yourself with that spell."

"Covering for himself as usual," says Lupin. "What a coward."

"Indeed," says Kingsley, looking straight at Harry and not blinking.

 _Shit_ , Harry thinks.

"Thank you, everyone," says Harry, trying to leave as quickly as he can. "This meeting is dissolved."

***

Harry's fastest means nothing to Kingsley, who doesn't even run. He takes off at a leisurely stride and corners the boy on the first floor.

"What are you playing at, Potter?"

"I-"

"Where did you even learn how to cast it?"

Kingsley briefly glances at the Black family library. Harry follows his gaze to suggest convincingly that he's been caught.

"You almost died today," Kingsley says neutrally, with no contempt or feeling. "Albus Dumbledore falls from the Astronomy Tower. Who do you imagine now sits at the right hand of the Dark Lord?"

Harry gulps because he knows this all too well.

"There's too much between us," says Harry. "If we meet again, we'll strike at the other until one of us can do no more."

"So there is a next time?"

Harry gives him a vicious nod.

_There will be a next time until I wash my hand in his heart._

"He's mine," he swears. "Or I am his."

***

After dropping by Mafalda Hopkirk’s desk, Dolores Umbridge is on her way home.

“Was ever a man so proud,” says a voice, halting her. “As our dear friend, Severus Snape?”

“Yaxley,” greets the Senior Under-Secretary to the Minister for Magic.

“Madam Secretary.”

Umbridge smiles, feigning disappointment that seems to say, _Come, Yaxley. We are of House Slytherin. Name your favour, so I might hint at its price._

“When we were appointed to serve the people of Magical Britain,” he begins.

“I believe he has no equal,” says Umbridge sweetly.

 _Yes_ , she smiles. _It was meant to be you, wasn’t it? You were supposed to stand where he is, Head of Magical Law Enforcement._

_But Snape robbed you of that glory. And it hurts, doesn’t it?_

“You are more intelligent than the Minister,” he tries again. “And so, you saw the mockery that went down today. I do wonder how Snape’s insolence can brook to be commanded under Scrimgeour any longer.”

“Do not insult my intelligence. I was there. Did you not see his eyes today?”

“He couldn’t take them off Potter’s hologram. I believe he is a deeply perverted man who-“

“They were _twitching_ ,” says Umbridge, layering on the condescension. “I thought you of all men would recognise post-Cruciation shock.”

“The war devours him,” says Yaxley, almost gleefully.

“The _war_ , Yaxley?”

Her gaze doesn’t lower, but all of a sudden, he feels very conscious of his left forearm.

“Severus Snape is your man,” says Umbridge. “I don’t meddle with certain affairs.”

“He is grown too proud,” whispers Yaxley urgently. “To be anyone’s man but his own. He will not stop at anything.”

“Is there a point to this conversation, Yaxley?”

“Opinion that sticks to Severus Snape will drag Scrimgeour down with him,” says Yaxley.

Umbridge turns to walk away, but he calls after her.

“Madam Secretary! I want you to hear this - so you remember the way it sounds until you hear it again.”

Yaxley walks in front of Umbridge and poses solemnly like a beatific Muggle saint. One hand is outstretched, as if wiping a misty window to let in the sun.

“Madam Minister,” he intones reverently. “Madam Minister for Magic, Dolores Jane Umbridge."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please comment :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! this is my first fic so please leave feedback no matter how mean :))


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